Dali, difference and dynamism

Dali is our most recent arrival, a KWPN who has come from the opposite corner of the UK - the far north east - all the way to us in the south west. 

For those of you abroad who know that England is a relatively tiny place and think this is no big deal, let me just share with you that fuel prices are running at more than £1.40/litre - or about $8.20 per US gallon for those of you in Texas - so getting from one corner of England to the other is a major economic undertaking...

Kudos to Rachael, Dali's owner, who has made a huge effort to bring Dali down here and who has ploughed massive amounts of time, energy and passion into his rehabilitation already. His hooves need a lot of work, but I know she has already made enormous progress in turning him into the affectionate and sociable horse he is today.

Dali has pretty much everything going on, according to his MRI report - DDFT, collateral and impar ligaments all have areas of damage, along with the navicular bone and fibrocartilage damage. The problems are bilateral, but what is particularly evident with Dali's hooves at the moment is that left and right are very different. The top photo is his RF - more underrun, longer toe - the lower his LF - boxier and more upright.

Both feet of course have some major event lines and some obvious bruising but those are "past history" and not something I am unduly worried about at the moment. The differences are as dramatic from the front - if anything the RF appears to have slightly better medio-lateral balance but its by far his lamest leg.

The LF appears more unbalanced and distorted and you can see simply from this view of the hoof that collateral ligament damage is likely (as was shown on MRI). However, as you all already know, hooves are incredibly dynamic, so I am hoping that Dali will start rapidly changing his foot balance over the next few weeks.

Finally, I couldn't resist including another Dali - and until I looked at this last night I hadn't realised that Salvador was making his own comment on remedial farriery...

510 Trailer for sale

I've already put this on Facebook so apologies and please ignore if you've already seen it there(!) but I forgot to post on here...

We are selling the nicer and newer of our 2 trailers - its an Ifor Williams 510 (takes 2 x 17.2hh horses). We bought it new as one of the last of the old styles so its 3-4 years old. Its in very good condition apart from a split to one mudguard and a tear to the rubber skirt in one partition (purely cosmetic and both of which you can see in the pics).

Its got an aluminium floor, all the normal partitions plus a head partition which we will include for free. Its always been well looked after, kept under cover and washed out after each use, floor/electrics/tyres etc regularly checked and in good order. 

We are looking for £2850 ono so if you are interested please email or call me. Thanks! 

Thursday pics

Quick photo gallery for Thursday - my XC pic has arrived and looks so much better real size - very pleased with my pocket rocket (bless his little eager face!) and hope we will get out hunter trialling again very soon!

Busy day yesterday, though, with Legend's owners coming to see him and new boy Dali arriving to take Dom's spot, as my blue-eyed boy has now gone home to Sussex.

This is Dali, who had an epic trip down here from Co. Durham, arriving late on Tuesday night having travelled brilliantly. He met Felix and Charlie first, of course, and was very relaxed so yesterday he was also introduced to Abbey, who took an instant shine to him and has decided that Dali is his new best mate. 

Its always nice when new horses pal up so quickly, and I will get Dali's hoof pics etc up as soon as I can!

Eva's progress

A quick Eva update, as its been a busy day here already, with new boy Dali arriving late last night and Domino setting off for Sussex at 6.30 this morning!  Eva's been doing well the last few weeks and I wanted to post a few quick comparison photos for her owners. 

What is interesting is that from this angle her feet are becoming steadily more symmetrical as she loads them more evenly. 

Compare the medial deviation and heel and bar position in this photo to the lower one taken yesterday. 

The heels are more supportive, the bars less exaggerated (a sure sign of a stronger and more stable hoof) and the medial and lateral sides are more symmetrical as well. 

I'm going to do a series of posts on soundness, symmetry, function and form over the next few weeks and Eva may well be one of the case studies!

Roo's hooves

Roo has been here just over 3 weeks and is already making some good changes to her hooves. This is already a foot with improving balance. 

Her lameness is mild and although her medio-lateral balance is changing quite significantly, she was already landing heel first which gives her a head-start. 

Here are her sole shots - she had fairly healthy frogs in shoes and had been sympathetically shod but these photos clearly demonstrate the difference in frog and sole engagement in a barefoot as opposed to shod horse.

Caudal hoof shots confirm the same, this time of the RF. She is also growing a hoof capsule at a different angle  - you can already feel it but it won't be visible to photo for a few more weeks.

As always, looks at the length of the hoof wall in the shod photo by comparison with today and looking at that you can also clearly see the distortion in the wall. That's something which should continue to get better over the next few weeks. 

NFU - Details of the Ombudsman's decision

I posted last week about the Ombudsman's decision against NFU and Catherine has generously given me the go-ahead to post the details of the decision here.


Basically, NFU had refused to allow Catherine's claim that rehab here should be covered under her policy. She was supported by her vet and previously NFU policy holders had been able to claim 50% of the cost of rehab.

However, in Catherine's case, and in a number of subsequent cases, NFU refused to meet the claim saying that rehab here no longer qualified under the terms of the policy, which seemed very unfair.

The Ombudsman process was appealed at the first instance by NFU and the subsequent appeal has taken 2 years but we at last have a final decision and the complaint against NFU has been upheld.

The decision turned on whether therapy by a "specialist" is limited only to vets and para-professionals or had a wider definition. The key paragraph of the decision reads:

"Navicular syndrome requires specific treatment to be carried out by an experienced professional and I do not consider that this is something which Miss Hodson could reasonably have been expected to perform herself.


Treatment carried out at Rockley Farm extends beyond simply exercising the horse on different surfaces as it requires expertise to assess the horse's initial condition and its subsequent state of health at each stage of the treatment, modifying that treatment if and when required...very few horse owners would have the necessary expertise or confidence to correctly identify and treat the medical issues involved...


I am satisfied that the treatment offered by Rockley Farm has proven efficacious results (while accepting that no treatment can guarantee 100% success) and does not represent some alternative therapy of dubious nature and quality that NFU...should not be obligated to provide cover for."

Fabulous news, massive thanks and congratulations to Catherine and I hope this will provide help to those of you struggling with NFU at the moment. Catherine is happy for me to share the wording of the decision in full with anyone who needs more info.

Rockley Rehab Reunion 2012

We've managed to finalise a date and a venue, so here are the details for the RRR 2012 - thanks for your patience, and its beginning to sound quite exciting :-)
Date: 22nd and 23rd September
Venue: Milton Keynes Eventing Centre: www.mkec.co.uk

Cost and logistics: To be finalised, but will be around £35 per horse per day which includes stabling, use of the indoor school, show jumps and XC course.

We will probably ask them to include a marquee and catering too, which will be around £15 per person and there is a camping field with loos and showers which we are welcome to use (I know you SO loved camping last year!).

It ticks the box for being a more central location than Rockley(!), just off the M1, post code MK19 7HQ - and it sounds like a great venue so I hope it will be even better than last year's RRR.

We have 50 spaces. They will be available to rehab horses and their owners first, but if we have extra spaces then we will open it to anyone with a barefoot horse who wants to come along.

As soon as we have final details on the cost (probably next week) you will be able to book a place via Lea - who has nobly volunteered to look after the admin (THANK YOU LEA!) - on deerhound68@hotmail.co.uk.  I will also put a post up here and resurrect the RRR Facebook page and post updates there too.

Although there will be lots of opportunities for jumping and schooling, the best part of the RRR last year was the chance for us all to get together and share experiences, highs and lows so if happy hacking is more your style you will be just as welcome - if its anything like last year there will be cake and wine for all :-)

For me it was also wonderful to catch up with all the horses who had lived at Rockley for a short time and whom I hadn't seen for months or even years  (it was nice to see their owners too, of course!) so I hope lots of you can make it.